I did have to prepare hard in those two years, but two years was more than enough. A lot about doing well in an exam as selective as this comes down to winning the genetic lottery. If you do not have the aptitude, then spending 5-6 years wholly devoted to an exam you are not going to crack is going to be an extremely demotivating way to spend your entire teenage life.
Agree 2 years is more than enough. Within the first 6 months of those 2 years the ones who had been there longer had no advantage. Guys who had been top at their local schools quickly caught up if they studied hard.
Well, this is not a binary classification: there are those fortunate few who have, as you say, won the "genetic intelligence lottery" and sail through school and exams such as this with little to no effort, then there are those who have to study hard for x years in order to make it, then there are those who need extra tutoring, and then there are of course some who even with all the help their parents can afford will not be able to make it.
I (born in Romania, was programming as a hobby since age 12) was in the "extra tutoring" group BTW, then I barely passed the maths, physics etc. exams of the first semesters, but when the actual CS courses started I got better and graduated with pretty passable grades (not that any employer looks at those)...
You are missing that the context here is getting through an extremely selective competitive examination. Only the top 5% students by aptitude for math/science/engineering have any significant chance of getting through. The rest are just fodder for the coaching industry selling increasingly more and more extreme and ridiculous products. Soon they might start selling products for coaching the unborn baby by teaching maths to the mother too.
None of what I am saying is intended to apply to the practice of actually being a professional engineer or having a successful career.
"there are those fortunate few who have, as you say, won the "genetic intelligence lottery" and sail through school and exams such as this with little to no effort"
Is that just genetics? What about these kids' family lives? How about the interests kindled in them when they were young? How did their teachers treat them, and was there something in their experience in school, with tutors or parents which ignited a love for that subject? Did these kids' friends and family also value their learning? How much encouragement did they get?
We can't assume that kids who take the same exams differ in nothing except their genes.
There is a belief among folks who cleared the JEE that this is a pure consequence of their inner genius - they are mini-Einsteins.
They forget the investments their parents made - including sending them away for 2 years at a coaching and lodging centre - Something most folks cant afford. Or they forget that they had to appear twice or thrice. Surprisingly the entrance exam failed to recognize their genius the first time around.
